Merging interests of Europe at the Pontignano conference
If you shut your eyes during the debates here in Pontignano you cannot distinguish which nationality the speaker represents.
A generation ago that would not have been true. For a start, fewer of the Italians would have spoken fluent English. Secondly globalization has harmonised much of the discourse.
That said, there is no celebration of the extraordinary creation that, historically, the European Union represents.
Love it or hate it, history has never seen such a cohesive trading union of nation states last so long, let alone with a single currency (minus UK and the merging Easter bloc, though unlike the UK they are in the waiting room).
The concern centres on the extent that Europe as a concept means so little to the average citizen that its doings are dull and its accountability to us apparently also small and dull.
Yet the problems are common – a vast gulf between the rich and poor across Europe, a vast gap between the electorate and the political elite and, in the aftermath of the downing of the Berlin wall, a serious erosion in political engagement of the sort that brought the Union into being.
Key amongst the issues we talked about this morning – immigration, the fears for jobs by the receiving population and fears too of cultural dilution. Yet the reality is that British renewal, for example would have been very severely hampered but for the arrival of young working resource, skilled and unskilled.
Italy has a more fraught relationship with immigration than the UK, though the UK has more. Here, right wing extremists are becoming ever bolder in denouncing immigrants.
The other huge issue is that of the bankers and the crash – the Europe-wide revulsion that monies that should be paying for health care and educational opportunity are being paid out to the very bankers who brought about the crash.
The Barclays development in which 45 of its senior staff have been given money to set up a company in the Caymans to buy up Barclays worst toxic assets – some called it a conjuring trick that was in concert with everything that had led to the crash.
Getting to grips with the bankers is something Europe simply hasn’t done and many pointed to the reality that if Europe doesn’t engage with the issues that exercise the citizenry, how can anyone be persuaded to get excited about it.
The struggle continues. I must go back in. Five hours talking today, three or four yet to come. Get me a drink Miss Moneypenny!